Sexual Healing in the Israeli Military
Healing the deepest of battle wounds through ground-breaking sexual therapy. One woman's quest to allow Israeli soldiers to heal.
Soldiers returning from the line of duty with injuries affecting sexual performance are universal to all militaries around the world, but Israeli psychologist Dr Ronit Aloni set about making hers the only nation that offers a unique therapeutic approach to restoring the sexuality of their troops as a matter of course: surrogate partner therapy (SPT), or sexual surrogacy. After studying the niche treatment in the US in the early nineties, Dr Aloni conducted studies, lobbied the government and met with religious leaders in order to make this therapy, considered fringe and often taboo in other nations, available to those who need it via Ministry of Defense funding. But why is Israel alone in this? The therapy is best described as traditional psychotherapy combined with intimate sexual therapy with a surrogate lover, in every form that can mean, and it was Dr Aloni鈥檚 dogged belief in its life-changing benefits for her clients that caused her to pursue provision for the troops. For Crossing Continents, Yolande Knell tells the story of that policy through Dr Aloni鈥檚 work and her Tel Aviv clinic, the work of surrogate partner Seraphina, and two military veterans who have accessed the service: one of the first to be offered it on the MoD鈥檚 time in the late nineties, and one a conscripted young man paralysed by his injuries who after years of begging for death, says the therapy 鈥渞estored his humanity鈥.
Produced by Philip Marzouk.
Editor, Bridget Harney
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- Thu 15 Apr 2021 11:00成人快手 Radio 4
- Mon 19 Apr 2021 20:30成人快手 Radio 4
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Crossing Continents
Stories from around the world and the people at the heart of them.